With the Championship being less attractive for international sponsors, Huddersfield are now meeting with potential sponsors “down south.”

The new kit won’t be released before mid-July.

Ahead of their first season back in the Championship after getting relegated from the Premier League, there are still a lot of questions to be asked regarding Huddersfield Town.

Phil Hodgkinson is still to be accepted as the new owner by the EFL after the club announced his takeover in May. Besides that, almost all the clubs have released new kits for the upcoming season, but Town are yet to do the same and the reason is very simple:

Huddersfield can’t find a front-of-shirt sponsor.

“In terms of the sponsor, it’s been very difficult,” admits Sean Jarvis, commercial director at Huddersfield Town, in a statement on the club’s website.

“OPE had first refusal, they were the ones that decided whether they wanted to renew or not at the price we wanted to set the kit at for next season. Sadly, they didn’t renew, but we remain friends with them.”

Complicated affair in Championship

OPE Sports is a part of Opebet, a global betting brand founded in 2007, and first sponsored Huddersfield in their first ever season in the Premier League in 2017/18 - a season when they increased their commercial turnover by 185 per cent.

When announcing the deal, Chairman Dean Hoyle said: “The growth of our international fan base since promotion played an important part in our new international partnership.”

We had some interest throughout the summer but as these happen sometimes they get further down the line and they tend to collapse, so it’s a complicated affair"

But since getting relegated back to the Championship, the number of potential sponsors has declined.

“We went looking in the market place and there were a number of Championship clubs, and I think there are one or two still, looking for shirt sponsors. It’s a very competitive market and we have set our prices,” Sean Jarvis said in a statement.

“We had some interest throughout the summer but as these happen sometimes they get further down the line and they tend to collapse, so it’s a complicated affair.

“Would we have liked to have done it sooner? Of course, but it is what it is.”

Kit release in July

The Terries will play their first friendly ahead of the new season on 10th July against German second-tier team SpVgg Greuther Fürth, but the players won’t sport the new kit till their friendly against Rochdale AFC on 17th July, when the shirt is expected to be revealed.

“We are now having a number of meetings down south with people. We are now pretty close.

“We are not there yet, and there’s still some work to do and contracts to sign, hence why the kit has been delayed to that mid-July point. We are getting close. Hopefully the 17th July will be that key date,” Jarvis said.

Fans will be able to buy the shirt on 20th July.

View all financial data for Huddersfield in the Off The Pitch Database, where you can find data on all clubs in the Premier League and the Championship.